Words used to indicate tempo on a piece of music must be taken with a grain of something, if not salt. Take “Spiritoso,” for example. I was told it meant “spirited.” Un uh. It’s a joke, baby. Where’s the joke? you might ask, when it looks like a regulation piece in 4/4 time. If it’s by Clementi look a little harder.
A gentleman flutist in my chamber music class once put it this way: “You mean the point isn’t to show up on time for duty on the first beat of every bar?”
I remember as a kid being intrigued by the song "Oh, my darlin' Clementine." Sure sounds like a sad story. Can't be! But it is fun to sing it exaggerating its tragic surface. There is a young boy wh
Every time I cross 109th St. on my way up or downtown I cast a glance at the apartment building on the corner of 109 and Riverside Drive, the former residence of Hannah Arendt. Her essays in The New Y
Funny, how we take for granted that someone is listening when we talk to them. Do you recall ever talking to someone who wasn't paying the slightest attention to you and/or to what you were saying? T